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Crystalized Movements Biography

crystalized-movements

Boston-based psych-space rockers Crystalized Movements were the first of many musical platforms for Wayne Rogers, a singer and guitarist whose record label Twisted Village (and the retail store he operates under that name in a basement in the heart of Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts) is a nexus of the American psych-prog-noise underground. Rogers and company released five albums and a single under this name before he and Crystalized Movements guitarist Kate Biggar formed Magic Hour with the ex-Galaxie 500 rhythm section of Damon & Naomi in 1993. The original Crystalized Movements were a duo of Rogers and fellow guitarist Ed Boyden, who met as high school freshmen in the small Connecticut town of Tolland in 1980. Fans of both '60s psychedelia and more aggressive recent forms, the duo recorded their first album, Mind Disaster, in the spring of 1983, and then split up when they graduated from high school that June. Rogers released the album in late 1983 as the first release on his Twisted Village label (after spending an entire summer layering dozens of guitar overdubs on the basic tracks), and it was reissued the following year on the U.K. label Psycho in a different cover. Considerably more song-oriented than later Crystalized Movements records, and almost downright Nuggets-style garage punk in spots, Mind Disaster is nonetheless an impressive effort, especially considering the youth of the participants. Rogers reformed Crystalized Movements with Biggar in the mid-'80s, and the newly-reorganized duo, plus a rhythm section, released Dog...Tree...Satellite Seers in 1987, a more expansive and graceful album than the Rogers/Boyden record had been. This Wideness Comes followed in 1989. The 7" single of "Blown Over" backed with "Through a Glass" came out in 1991, with the Damaged Lights album appearing later that year. In late 1992, Crystalized Movements released Revelations From Pandemonium, the only one of their albums to be released on both LP and CD. (Mind Disaster would be reissued by Twisted Village on CD in 1997.) Rogers started his solo career the same year with Ego River. His albums of solo guitar improvisations, the Magic Hour releases of the mid-'90s, and other projects with Biggar and others, allowed the Crystalized Movements name to lapse. ~ Stewart Mason, Rovi

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